Monday, 25 November 2013

I’m a bit
taken aback. Then her messages come thick, fast - and outraged.

‘Who is he?’

‘How old is he?’

‘I hope you’re just flirting?’

‘Not kissing?’

Mum?’

‘I’m freaking out here.’

‘Muuuuuuuuum!’

Yikes. I’m
having the best sex of my life with the builder but how do I tell Alex that?

‘Just flirting’ I type, and bite my lip.

I can
understand her. But I can understand me too. I was widowed when she was 9 (her sister and brother were 6 and 3) and six
weeks later trotted off to a ‘Widows are Young’ meeting in a vast kitchen in Wimbledon where we all sat around on high stools and
discussed replacements. I kid you not. I just hope there’s an anthropological
excuse for that. Within a matter of months I’d hooked up with a lovely
businessman and we moved from London down to
Chard in Somerset
but let’s not go there. (No really; don’t go there.)

A few years
down the line he decided it was time to start playing the field again but
forgot to tell me. When I walked in on him a few months ago and found him
romping on the sofa with a lusty Devon Dumpling he came clean and walked out. And
that’s when the builder came to fix the roof. And the tv and the door off its
hinges. And me.

I’m not a
slut but I’ve only had two men in my life and when a gorgeous hunk with
stubble, twinkling eyes and dusty jeans pushes you up against the credenza and
kisses you hard but soft it’s just a no-brainer.

‘Hmmm’ Alex whatsapps back. ‘Well just don’t go getting involved!’

Too late of
course. I’ve fallen disastrously in love. What 45 year old woman wouldn’t when
plunged into an erotic fantasy come true? As someone who generally lies back
and thinks of the laundry, having a man who has a million ways to make you
orgasm, each better than the last, in forests, fields, the back of his white
van and his one-up one-down council house - not to mention er.. tools so
massive you won’t see them outside of Africa -
I was a total mid life goner.

‘Passion
usually lasts six months’ he said one day a few weeks ago as we were sitting on
a beach gazing out to sea at the sunset. He should know as he’s my age (well,
okay a few years younger) and never been married. ‘So let’s make the most of
it.’

As it happens
I was well up for that but he wasn’t. Passion lasted three months for him and
then he was always either ‘out watching my boys play footie’ or forgetting to
make our dates because ‘got totally wankered with my mates.’

In the end I
couldn’t stand the agony of waiting for his non-existent texts so I called him
and ended it.

‘Mum’ said my
16 year old Daisy when she found me sobbing into the flowerbed. ‘The best way
to get over a man is to get under another one.’ (Daisy and Alex are not alike.)